Month: January 2017

One of the most common ad hominem arguments against the pro-life movement is that pro-life people only really care about the unborn, and don’t care what happens after birth (or about the conditions into which the child will be born).
Often, this argument goes hand-in-glove with the argument that is pro-lifers really want to be pro-life, they have to support giving more money to such-and-such a social program, or hand out free condoms, or endorse some other politically-liberal policy. Other times, the argument is that pro-lifers need to personally adopt kids, or else be content to let them get aborted.
Here are seven answers to that argument.

One of the difficulties of accepting Christianity is that some of the things described in the Bible are just... weird. Within the first few pages, for example, you've got a talking snake. And even when you learn that this "snake" is actually a fallen angel, that realization doesn't make the scene less strange. Immediately after this, we hear of "the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis 3:8).
Quite understandably, many modern readers want to treat this whole Book as a work of fiction. But before rushing to that hasty conclusion, consider another apparently fantastical historical account, Marco Polo's report of seeing unicorns in Ferlec (modern Indonesia)...

A frequent source of in-fighting amongst Christians involves beauty. How beautiful should our churches be? How beautiful should our Liturgies be? And why? In these discussions, there are two points that often go overlooked:
1. We Worship Beauty.
2. Created Beauty Points towards Divine, Uncreated Beauty.
If you want to understand the Mass, and why there's such an emphasis on beauty (instead of the stripped-down worship services and whitewashed churches of some Protestant denominations), consider these two points, and how they play out in the life of Israel, the Church on earth, and in Heavenly glory.

The Calvinist theologian Peter Leithart has a fascinating (but incorrect) article on the perpetual virginity over at First Things. There is much to praise about the short piece. First, he's asking the right question. As the article's teaser puts it, "why didn't Joseph have sex with Mary during her pregnancy?" So many Protestants focus on the fact that they believe St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary did have sex after Christmas that they ignore the explicit Biblical evidence that they didn't have sex before (Matthew 1:25). Second, much of Leithart's answer is correct, and points to the radical Biblical truth about the Virgin Mary. Finally, even when Leithart's argument goes off the rails, he shows his work, so it's easy enough to see how he goes wrong.